Labyrinth, p.21
Labyrinth, page 21
They start searching for the pieces of evidence they need.
Ramirez speaks first. “Mr. Norris, would you mind if we record this?”
“Sure—”
She presses me. “Sure you mind? Or sure we can record?”
“Record away. And call me Alan.”
She carefully places a handheld recorder in the middle of the puzzle pieces and activates it.
“Interview: Saturday, October 11th, at…” She glances at her phone. “3:42 PM, at the residence of Mr. Alan Norris. Detectives Tate and Ramirez present.”
She looks up at me. “Mr. Norris, you’re not under arrest, and you are under no legal obligation to talk to us. Would you please confirm for the recording that you’ve agreed to be recorded this afternoon?”
“I’m Alan Norris, and I’ve agreed.”
“Mr. Norris,” Ramirez says, “would you mind telling us your whereabouts on the night of August 25th from around the time of 8 PM to 3 AM?”
I’ve thought about this moment a lot—this interview. I figured it would happen, eventually.
Navigating a police investigation—as a suspect with something to hide—is its own kind of Labyrinth.
What I’m betting right now is that they’re opening with a question they know the answer to. If I lie—and they catch me in that lie—it will change the entire course of what’s about to occur. Things will go badly for me.
At the same time, I can’t tell the truth. That, I think, would result in Tate or Ramirez saying some form of “Mr. Norris, let’s continue this conversation at the station.”
As such, I’m going to give them the story I’ve concocted for this exact moment. It’s a story that assumes they have my car on camera going into and out of downtown. To be on the safe side, I’m also going to assume they know I was in the building where Briggs was killed. Maybe they know from the tracks I left or possibly a fingerprint I missed.
The more problematic thing is my DNA potentially being on Briggs’s body. For that reason, I’ve considered admitting that I was there with Briggs that night and that we had an altercation. But I think saying that would seal my fate pretty quickly.
Like any innocent man—and busy father and teacher—I also need to make it look like I can’t recall what I was doing on any given Sunday several months ago (I mean, who could remember off the top of their head?).
I draw my phone from my pocket, open my calendar, and go back to August, and then pause, as if thinking.
“That was the night before the first day of school. For me and my daughter. I’m a teacher. We were at home.”
“The whole night?” Tate asks.
He’s good. Completely casual. But I feel my nerves edging up. My palms getting clammy. I expect the ringing to start, the stress to set it off. But it’s dead quiet in the dining room as I begin telling the lie I hope will keep me out of jail.
“No. Actually, now that I think about, I did go out that night to meet up with an old Marine buddy.”
“Can you give us a name?” Ramirez asks.
“Nathan Briggs.”
As I say the name, neither moved a muscle.
“What did he want to meet about?” Ramirez asks.
“He was having some problems. Wanted to talk.”
“What kind of problems?” Tate asks.
“I guess you’d call it a mental health crisis.”
“So where did you meet up?” Tate asks nonchalantly.
“Downtown. It was a building that was under construction. And we didn’t actually meet up.”
“What do you mean?” Tate asks.
“Nathan never showed. I went there and waited, but he sent a message and said to forget it.”
“Could you give us the building’s address?” Ramirez asks.
“I don’t have it.”
Tate adopts a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“Nathan sent me the address, but it was on an app that deletes the messages after a set period.”
Ramirez raises an eyebrow. “That’s kind of odd. The secrecy.”
“Yeah, look, it was at his request. As I said, he was having some problems. Paranoia was one of them.”
Tate pulls out a small notepad from the inside of his jacket pocket and clicks a pen. “Do you recall what time you left, Mr. Norris?”
“I don’t.”
Next, they ask me about my contact with Briggs prior to that night, and if I was—or am—in contact with anyone else who was close to Briggs. Those questions I can actually answer honestly, and that relaxes me a bit.
Tate stows the notepad in his jacket pocket and glances over at Ramirez, who nods and collects the recorder and tells me that’s all the questions they have for now.
They’re both rising from the table, but I raise my hands, stopping them. “Would it be okay if I ask a question?”
“Of course,” Ramirez replies, lowering back into the chair. She reactivates the recorder.
“What’s all this about?”
“What we can tell you,” Tate says, “is what’s been released to the public: Nathan Briggs was found dead on the night in question.”
As Meredith noted, I am a terrible liar, but the moment calls for it, and I don’t feel like I have any choice. Trying to sound equally shocked and curious, I ask how Briggs died.
“We’re investigating the matter as a homicide,” Ramirez says. Both detectives study me intently, and I try to play the part of shocked friend.
When I don’t say anything, Ramirez asks if I have any other questions, and I simply shake my head.
As they walk out, they thank me for my time and provide their cards and request that I call if I remember any information related to Briggs or hear from anyone who might.
When they’re gone, I walk down to Meredith’s house. She and Riley are sitting on the back porch, playing the game Operation. Peering through the sliding glass door, I’m reminded of that moment I saw them at her house, a month ago, inside, playing the game. They look just as happy; completely unaware of the chaos happening in my life. I want to keep it that way. As long as I can.
Sliding the door open draws their attention.
“What was that?” Riley asks.
“It was nothing, kiddo. Just people asking about a thing at work.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then cuts her eyes to Meredith, who is a statue looking back at her.
“Excuse me,” Riley mumbles as she rises and heads off to the half-bathroom.
Meredith, who is still holding the Operation tweezers, which are tethered to a thin cord snaking out of the game board, points them at me. “Same question: what was that? Keep in mind, I work where you do.”
I nod, knowing my second interrogation of the afternoon is about to start. “Same answer: nothing. For now.”
“You know, Alan, believe it or not, I know what a police cruiser looks like. And how detectives dress.”
“I know you do.”
“Was it about the situation with your neighbors?”
I could lie now. It would be the easy way out. It would be the same as I did with those detectives: a believable lie.
But I don’t. And that’s an interesting thing: I’m willing to spin a tale to a couple of homicide detectives, but I won’t lie to Meredith. Sure, I’ve withheld information, but I haven’t lied.
“It’s not the neighbor drama. It’s…”
“What Alan?”
The door to the half-bathroom opens, and Riley exits.
“It’s related to my tinnitus.”
Meredith bunches her eyebrows, rightly confused about how the ringing in my ears could be a criminal matter.
“That makes no sense.”
“On that, we agree.”
“Dad?”
I turn to Riley.
“I want to try again.”
“The bike?”
She looks at me like I’m an alien. “Of course.”
I turn to Meredith. “Want to participate in a bike riding lesson? We could probably use an expert in physical education.”
She gives me a tight smile. “Another time. I’ve got plans tonight.”
*
As I push Riley’s bike back up to the community center, I’m wondering if Meredith really does have plans tonight. And if those plans are a date. They probably are.
It makes sense.
It’s the best thing for her. To meet a normal guy with a normal life and no baggage.
No ringing. No dead bodies. No police investigations. No covert numbers group meetings.
The second riding session goes about like the first, with me offering to put the training wheels back on and Riley refusing, noting—with annoyance—that training wheels are for babies.
On the way home, the sun is setting as Riley mutters, “I’ll never learn to ride.”
“You will, kiddo. You have to practice. It’ll get easier, and eventually, you’ll be able to ride that bike without even thinking about it.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Trust me, Riley. I know what I’m talking about. A few years before you were born, I had to learn to walk all over again.”
48
As foretold in the covert recordings from Anders Larsson’s office, a major release does happen Tuesday.
It is impossible to miss.
The promotional campaign must have cost a fortune.
Everyone is talking about it on social media. Influencers—both paid and unpaid—share Hollywood-quality videos with their own hot takes.
Traditional media covers the social media buzz, and thus, on my mobile phone, Amersa’s release is nearly all I see. It’s a supernova event, blotting out all the other shiny things in the world for a short while.
It isn’t just an online phenomenon—a viral video seen in the morning and forgotten by the afternoon. The offering rolls out in the real world, too, though in limited locations.
Amersa—and their influencers and some journalists—call it the iPhone moment of this generation. A release on par with the personal computer. Or the internet itself.
The hyperbole escalates from there, everyone trying to top each other. There are mentions of the Gutenberg press. The steam engine. The telephone.
I roll my eyes when I read comparisons to electricity and the wheel.
Life will never be the same, they say. And you can be among the first to experience the future.
Their offering is called Labyrinth. And from the videos, it looks like the same Labyrinth I’ve been making my way through at their offices.
They don’t call it a video game.
Or a virtual reality experience. Or augmented reality.
They simply call it Labyrinth, perhaps hoping it will define itself.
And instead of letting the media or reviewers show it to the world, Amersa has produced its own video of Labyrinth experiences. They’re like use cases—examples of how people will use Labyrinth.
The first video features a female influencer who’s maybe college age. She’s fit and bubbly, and her eyes flash at the phone she’s holding as she and an equally fit guy are walking into a movie theater.
At the box office window, her date leans toward the glass and orders the tickets. The influencer must not be thrilled with the pick because some of her bubbliness fades.
Inside the theater, they recline in the seats and eat candy and share a soda. The movie is a post-apocalyptic alien invasion.
He’s into it.
She is not.
Monsters are galloping through Paris, France, and the fleeing humans are climbing the Eiffel Tower when the influencer’s bored gaze drifts over to the camera.
White letters scrawl across the screen:
Can this date night be saved?
She presses a button and her recliner eases forward until her feet touch the floor, and she leans into her date’s field of view. He squints, annoyed as he tilts away from her. She points at the exit and whispers, and more white words scroll by:
Be right back.
Walking out, she smiles at the camera, as if she knows a secret.
Outside the theater, she walks down the hall to the door to another theater, this one guarded by two guys in suits who look like bouncers at a club.
The poster by the door isn’t for a movie. It’s for Labyrinth.
The influencer opens an app on her phone, which is apparently for Labyrinth, and holds it out, and one of the guys scans a QR code and waves her inside, where there are about a dozen black Labyrinth suits of varying sizes (just like the one I use at Amersa’s offices).
The video zooms forward with the influencer getting settled in, and the next image is of her in Paris, strolling along the Seine.
She stops in the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and browses the aisles.
She tours the Notre-Dame Cathedral next, and after, she takes a cruise along the Seine and visits the Louvre. Her final stop is the Trocadéro Gardens, where she lies on a blanket, watching the sun set beyond the Eiffel Tower as it lights up beautifully.
The last shot of her Labyrinth experience shows the influencer leaning back, looking utterly content with her Parisian mini-vacation.
Back at her seat beside her date, he’s finished the popcorn and is loudly draining the last of a bucket-sized fountain drink.
On the screen, the Eiffel Tower lies in a crumpled heap, surrounded by mounds of dead aliens and cheering humans. The view changes to the UK parliament building—also badly damaged—and the remnants of Big Ben in the street. Crowds of triumphant humans are cheering there, too. The influencer turns the phone to her face, raises her eyebrows, and four hashtags flash up: #ReinventDateNight #Labyrinth #VR #AI
There’s a link to download the Labyrinth app to schedule your first session and a list of the theater chains working to convert some screens to Labyrinth rooms.
It’s smart. The theater chains have huge email lists—and the financial motivation to reinvent themselves (or at least diversify their revenue streams).
The next video begins with a well-dressed man about my age, sitting in an airport lounge, staring at a laptop on a communal table, looking bored.
His gaze moves to the windows and the planes taxiing across the tarmac. He seems to decide something then. He closes his laptop and stuffs it in his backpack and exits the lounge, pulling his wheeled carry-on as he strolls down the concourse. He stops at a storefront under construction, the glass panels covered in brown paper.
Like the theater that was converted to a Labyrinth room, there are two linebacker-sized guards here as well. One scans him in, and the traveler sheds his backpack and stows his carry-on. A smiling woman in a Labyrinth-branded polo takes his measurements as if she’s fitting him for a tailored suit.
They bring out several of the black Labyrinth garments, and she says, “You want it tight, but not too tight. The suit itself will contract to fit your body.”
When he’s suited up, the view switches to a conference room in an office, and the guy isn’t wearing the suit; he’s in a V-neck sweater over a button-up collared shirt with business casual slacks.
There are five others around the table. For a moment, they talk in front of a large screen on the wall. The man from the lounge shakes his head and holds his phone up and gets the others’ attention, and after a few taps on the device, the six of them are sitting outside, around a rustic table with a view of a downtown cityscape in the distance. It reminds me of the outdoor seating at a craft brewery.
The team is dressed more casually now. Gone are the V-neck sweaters and button-up shirts. They’re in shorts and t-shirts.
A semi-translucent screen floats at the end of the table, showing a skyscraper under construction. The image zooms in, and it shows the floor plan for a condo with three bedrooms and an outdoor terrace.
The team gestures and talks, and then the view switches to a drone bearing the Labyrinth logo flying around the building under construction in a controlled pattern, as if it’s mapping it. When it has gone around the entire outside, it flies into the building and begins scanning it.
Back at the outdoor meeting, the air traveler once again uses his phone, and the group is transported from the outdoor terrace to the interior of one of the condos under construction. The semi-translucent screen follows them, and notes from their meeting scroll by for them to see and edit, the AI assistant capturing both text and blueprint updates.
The video goes at double and then triple speed as the team finishes their virtual site tour, and then they say their goodbyes.
Back in the airport, the man takes off the Labyrinth suit and exits the nondescript space, back onto the concourse. He watches as travelers glide by on a people mover. Shaking his head, he reaches into his interior jacket pocket, takes out his boarding pass, rips it up, and tosses it in the nearest trash can.
The link to download the Labyrinth app once again appears, accompanied by various hashtags: #ReinventWork #Labyrinth #VRMeeting #VR #AI
The scene is a little cheesy but it gets the job done in conveying how Labyrinth could transform work and enable instant virtual meetings—and could even be more efficient for work like construction projects.
The next video is of a mom dropping her kids off at soccer practice and driving to the mall afterward. But she doesn’t go in.
She exits her minivan and marches over to four cargo containers in the parking lot, stacked two wide and two tall.
There’s a table in front of them, and someone greets her, scans the app on her phone, and ushers her inside.
The container walls have been folded in to form a massive cube with pads on five sides. I recognize it. It’s a copy of the room at Amersa where I use Labyrinth.
Two handlers fit the mom with a suit and harness, and she looks at the camera, salutes, and says, in a sultry voice, “See you after soccer practice.”
Inside Labyrinth, she’s not wearing yoga pants. She’s in a slim-fitting white dress with a glittering, plastic tiara on her head and a sash running from her shoulder to her hip that says BRIDE TO BE. Under it, in magic marker, someone has written: LAST NIGHT OF FREEDOM.
She’s flanked by two women on one side and three on the other.
They’re walking into a dark club with loud music that pulses with the light.
